Ideas

Here you'll find various ideas for things such as small group events, retreats, creative ways to blame other ministries within your church for the giant mess you made, and much more

Live-Action Connect Four

Last year a game swarmed the student ministry world like middle school boys hearing there is free pizza, live-action Tic-Tac-Toe.

The premise of the game is to have participants start at the back of the room holding their respective X’s and O’s. They run up to the front and place them on a large tic-tac-toe board in hopes that their team would be the first one to get three in-a-row.

While planning our most recent retreat, we wanted to take Tic-Tac Toe up a notch as we did it last year and it was huge success. Out of that brainstorming session came Live-Action Connect Four!

Here’s the breakdown:

Quick Overview:

Two teams (four each) compete to get four plates in a row whether horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.

Game Play:

The two teams start at the back of the room with their respective red and black plates. Once the game starts they run up to the front and try to Connect Four in-a-row whether horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Make sure the aisle ways are clear! Gravity does apply which means a student cannot put their piece in a spot that is “floating”. Check the video to see what I mean

Supplies:

Yellow table clothes

25 red plates

25 black plates

50 small pieces of velcro

Painters tape

Prep:

Hang the yellow table clothe on a flat wall using painters tape (no need to peel off the paint in your worship center/student space). Start by placing one piece of velcro in the top left corner of the table clothe. Take the other piece and place it on the backside of one of your plates. Attach that plate to the board and use it as a reference point for spacing as you place the other pieces of velcro. We used velcro as it worked better than simply double-siding duct tape. We made five vertical rows and ten horizontal rows. We went with a longer board do to the size of the stage. A standard Connect Four board is six vertical rows and 7 horizontal rows

And that is how you prep for and play Connect Four! It was a ton of fun to do and our students had a blast playing/watching it. I’d love to see any pics/videos of how you pull this great game off in your context!